But as I understand prions, they are normal proteins made by protein synthesis in a cell, that get misfolded when they come into contact with a misfolded protein, the prion. Some proteins have a weakness or spontaneous tendency to misfold but they don’t come out of nowhere, but from complex life.
I can buy very short chains of amino acids spontaneously assembling, or very short chains of RNA, but for the two of them to get together, where the RNA synthesizes the proteins and the proteins catalyze and protect the RNA - I’m not yet buying that package.
Mrs VS
Whether a prion can spontaneously be produced is unverifiable, but what I wanted to point out was that a molecule with no basic support systems can thrive and reproduce itself, as if it were alive. A molecule doing that is fascinating.